A man lies in a hospital bed, his wife standing by the bedside. He is hooked up to machines that are keeping him alive. A doctor is explaining to her that he will never wake up, that he is essentially brain dead but his body will function as long as the machines are running. Then the doctor leaves the room, giving the woman time to think about what he has told her.
She leans over the bed, kisses her husband and tells him goodbye, and that she loves him. She steps out of the room and motions for the doctor to come back in. She tells him her decision and watches as he disconnects the machines and her husband takes his last breath.
Would you fault her for this, for making a difficult decision on behalf of her husband? Do you think it would be easy?
Alzheimer's runs in my family. Both of my parents died with it. There is no cure, and the few treatments that have been developed are woefully inadequate. My choice, were it legal, would be that when I can no longer recognize my friends and family, the people I love, that rather then spend my remaining days in confusion that I be anesthetized, anything of use be removed from my body, and then I be allowed to die. Even though it is not enforceable under current law, I put that into my advance medical directive.
How is that unreasonable? When the person I am is gone, replaced with a confused and frightened infant in an aging body, why am I required to keep going until something else breaks down, or my brain finally forgets to tell my heart to beat or my lungs to breath?
No comments:
Post a Comment
All comments are screened, but you don't have to agree with me to get published. You do have to make sense though. If you are not sure what I mean by making sense, read this. Unless what you say is really, really stupid, and then I may publish it just so I can make fun of you.